All Fall Down by Ally Carter

All Fall Down by Ally Carter
Series: Embassy Row #1
Publisher: Orchard Books
Publication Date: February 5th 2015
Source: Orchard Books [Netgalley]

Grace Blakely is absolutely certain of three things:

1. She is not crazy.
2. Her mother was murdered.
3. Someday she is going to find the killer and make him pay.

As certain as Grace is about these facts, nobody else believes her -- so there's no one she can completely trust. Not her grandfather, a powerful ambassador. Not her new friends, who all live on Embassy Row. Not Alexei, the Russian boy next door, who is keeping his eye on Grace for reasons she neither likes nor understands.

Everybody wants Grace to put on a pretty dress and a pretty smile, blocking out all her unpretty thoughts. But they can't control Grace -- no more than Grace can control what she knows or what she needs to do. Her past has come back to hunt her . . . and if she doesn't stop it, Grace isn't the only one who will get hurt. Because on Embassy Row, the countries of the world stand like dominoes, and one wrong move can make them all fall down.

I've been seeing reviews popping up for All Fall Down for a while now, and they've all been extremely positive. So when I was approved for a copy on Netgalley, I couldn't wait to dive into it. I enjoyed All Fall Down, but I didn't love it as much as everyone else did,

All Fall Down follows our main character Grace who has been sent to live with her grandfather on Embassy Row. Her mother died in an 'accident' a few years ago, but Grace knows it wasn't an accident - no matter what they tell her. She saw what happened and she saw the man who did it, and she's determined to make him pay.

I didn't really connect with Grace. I liked her, but I just couldn't connect with her. She's reckless, impulsive, stubborn, determined and she doesn't really listen to anyone - even when they're trying to help her. She's been deemed 'crazy' because of her story of the night her mother died - Grace thinks no one believes her and she wants to prove them wrong. I did feel bad for Grace because no one seemed to want to listen to her side of the story, and they always dismissed it, so I was rooting for her to prove them wrong.

Grace got herself into a lot of trouble and quite a few sticky situations because of her impulsiveness. She didn't think before acting, which caused her to end up places she couldn't explain her way out of and caused her grandfather some grief. She's so determined to find out what really happened the night her mother died, expose the truth and prove to everyone that she's not crazy. Noah, Rosie and Megan all decided they were going to help Grace. Noah is Grace's BFF (as he likes to call himself); Megan is someone Grace used to be friends with when she was younger and Rosie is a few years younger than Grace, but they become friends. All 4 of them work together to try to expose the man that Grace believes killed her mother. 

There's a slight hint of romance between Grace and her Russian next door neighbour, Alexei.I'm glad that Carter never put emphasis on their relationship because Grace had a lot to learn and discover about herself, so a romantic relationship really wouldn't have had a place in All Fall Down.

I ended up guessing the twist at the end, which was slightly disappointing because everything had been building up to that moment, but I'd already guessed it. I thought it was a pretty obvious and predictable twist, but I still enjoyed seeing how everything played out. There's a lot still to discover after the big reveal at the end, so I'm excited for book two to see what's in store for Grace next.

Overall, while I didn't love All Fall Down as much as everyone else seems to, I still really enjoyed it. It was fun, mysterious and the ending left me excited for the next book!